Faith and Honor
by GVJ
Summary: This story posits a what if scenario, specifically what if the skin-job cylons had started out as normal cylons. Set against a ground action against rebels on Sagittaron it tells an origin story for Cavil, Simon and Sharon from multiple points of view prior to the events of the Cylon War (i.e., somewhere between the events of Caprica and Blood and Chrome).


Faith & Honor

 _ **by GVJ**_

A shower of dirt rained down on the men and women of Bravo Company's first platoon as Henry looked up and saw his fear and discomfort reflected in the faces of his squad mates. Above them, artillery and mortar shells whined back and forth through the air while vipers wheeled through the sky. The two sides were locked in a deadly ballet, each doing its damnedest to knock a hole in the opposing line.

The insurgency on Sagittaron had proven to be much larger, better equipped, and psychologically prepared than the members of the multi-colony expeditionary force had expected. The rebels were resisting the assault on their stronghold with unprecedented ferocity and the expedition's human and metal soldiers were left huddling for cover and crawling through brush as they slowly advanced a meter at a time.

Henry cringed and pushed himself closer to the earth as another mortar shell burst nearby, trying to burrow into its confines as though the ground could absorb him through osmosis. He glanced up to see Sergeant Walker waving the squad up and forward.

The tall, broad-shouldered man had been joined by Lieutenant Jaffey. The pair were a study in strange contrasts. The brash sergeant's powerful shape dwarfed the short, wiry, middle-aged officer. The former was full of stifled, boundless energy. He looked out at the world with stern, angry eyes, while the latter was calm, even-tempered, and seemed to possess a boundless wisdom far beyond his thirty-two years.

"Corporal Kepler!" The sergeant's harsh voice thundered across the grassy knoll, piercing Henry's reverie. "Stop lollygagging and form up your fire-team!"

Corporal Henry Kepler hardly needed to be told what to do. Glancing back at the small collection of squad-mates that he was personally responsible for – Privates Fuller, Rambeau, Callistan – he gathered them up with his eyes. They knew what to do. They had trained for this. The four of them moved forward in unison, operating more as a single four-bodied organism than as a collection of soldiers. To their right Henry's team could see the squad's other fire-teams move forward. Beyond them, the fire-teams that were comprised by the platoon's other squads were also moving forward, as were the other platoons that made up Bravo Company.

Even though the artillery barrage had not let up, Henry could see that their small part of the front lines was relatively quiet, save for a few spurious mortar rounds that fell far short of them. To their right, Henry saw more movement. More squads and fire-teams were on the advance. It seemed like the entire force was moving forward. He wondered if this meant that the ranks of cylons directly ahead of them had managed to break through the rebels' seemingly impenetrable defenses.

Dr. Liuming Mao took the cigarette from his lips and gently blew a long stream of smoke out of his mouth as he watched vipers dancing in the distance. Their tiny white contrails snaked through the sky like a sleepy child's languid scribbles. It had been more than forty-eight hours since they had landed on Sagittaron and not only had progress on the ground slowed to the call but their air wing couldn't seem to dominate the skies. The expedition was still struggling to assert their command of the battlefield.

The stocky physician brought the cigarette back up to his lips and drew in another lungful of smoke as he thoughtfully looked at the aerial battle unfolding in the distance. Behind him, the heat of the afternoon was beating down all across the expedition's forward field hospital.

Throughout the previous day and that morning a small, but steady, stream of casualties had meandered into the camp. While it had been more than they had hoped, the numbers of wounded and killed where well within their worst-case scenarios. The casualties would have been worse if not for the battalion of cylons leading the assault. Mao knew that the machines were taking the brunt of the rebels' fury and their losses were almost twice those of the expedition's human members.

The short, barrel-chested man turned and considered the chrome, bipedal machine that stood near to him. It resembled all of the other cylons among the expeditionary force, a mixture of humanoid-shaped parts plated in chrome or enameled with black finish. The robot's singular eye was locked on where the vipers were still dueling in the sky.

It was good, the doctor thought, that the casualties were mostly cylons. It was better that the rebels destroy machines than kill humans. If it had been up to him, the entire expeditionary force might have been composed of cylons, obviating the need for his staff and him from being there at all. They were the perfect tools – thoughtful, tireless, and ultimately, expendable if the circumstances called for it. They could go into environments that no human being could survive in. His own cylon assistant had been helpful during their responses to countless hot zones, working directly with patients that were ill and a danger to others.

As he studied his mechanical companion, Liuming's eyes slid down to the black letters that were emblazoned on the cylon's chrome-plated shoulder. SMN-819RFHMN89-5Y23 they read. They were a terrible mouthful; SMN was shorter but the doctor hadn't cared for it either. It had too many syllabels. No, far better to call the cylon Simon. Simple Simon.

The cylon was such a magnificant tool, going into places where Liuming would never go himself. Surviving exposures to diseases that would liquefy an ordinary human's organs once contracted. Cylons were very useful and completely expendable.

Yes, Liuming thought, it really would have been better if they had comprised the whole of the expedition's members. He turned back to the aerial battle going on before them and took another drag from his cigarette before continuing with his internal ruminations. The field doctor knew that his opinions on cylons were in the minority. He could almost hear the objections that others would have raised to the suggestion that an all-cylon taskforce be used.

There were some who argued that the machines were too smart, that their AI was too intelligent. There were others who argued that the machines had feelings, that they could experience pain, fear, loss, and grief and that it was unethical to subject them to hazardous conditions. There were other, stranger rumors, such as that some of the machines gathered together to practice arcane occult rituals.

The doctor didn't put much stock into any of it. Certainly his experiences with Simple Simon hadn't provided evidence to support either argument. Sure, the cylon could carry out complex medical procedures on command, could even do neurosurgery when ordered to but, it lacked the physician's quintessential talent for knowing which procedures were necessary in a given situation. He thought of Simple Simon as more of a hyper-trained dog than an artificial being with a sapient intelligence.

Both human and machine involuntarily flinched as a distant viper exploded with a particularly violent fireball. As the two looked on, several of the wheeling white dots veered away and retreated towards the mountains that contained the rebels' stronghold. The friendly vipers were quick to pursue the fleeing rebels and before long both groups of fighters had disappeared into the twisting alpine valleys that cut through the vast mountain range dominating the horizon. It looked like the expedition's air wing had finally gained the upper hand. The physician took a long, last drag from his cigarette before dropping it onto the ground and stubbing it out.

"Come on," he turned to his mechanical companion and beckoned. "The show's over and it's time for us to get back to work."

CVL-3892778925-TY82 studied the ebony face of General Ernst Maccabe as the latter studied the dispositions of forces laid out on the table before them. To the middle aged general's left and right stood an array of adjutants, liaisons, and staff members. The Acre's CIC was alive with activity as the expeditionary force slowly forced the rebels to give up ground.

The cylon commander had just given the general and his staff an update on the ongoing offensive. The casualty rate for some of the cylon units was a staggering forty to fifty percent. At the current rate of attrition the cylon battalions would be all but annihilated by the end of the battle.

If CVL had been allowed to, he would have ordered his units to fall back and try and draw the rebels out but, the cylon was not in charge. He and his forces were at the whims of the humans assembled in the room around him.

He could hope that Maccabe would order a pause in the offensive but the General's pattern of behavior suggested that no respite was coming for the cylons sacrificing themselves on the front lines. The general and his staff only cared about the human portion of the expedition's fighting force.

Turning his attention to the table that spread before them, CVL considered the battlefield's layout. They were fighting at the foot of the mountains in which the rebels' fortress was located. The terrain was littered with ridges and canyons. It was a good place for a fortification. Hard to approach undetected and impossible to land troops directly onto.

If the expedition's forces could have drawn the rebels out from the mouth of the mountains in numbers large enough to make a decisive engagement, then the expedition's victory could have been swiftly achieved. But the rebels had deftly fallen back each time the cylons on the front line had threatened to overrun them. CVL thought that it was the expedition's forces that looked stretched thin.

If the rebels had had large enough numbers they would have been able to overwhelm, divide, and trap the expeditionary troops at the front. The cylon leader supposed that the fact that it hadn't happened yet was an indication that the rebels didn't have large numbers.

Still, CVL worried that the units at the front were vulnerable to a counter-attack. He wished that Maccabe would at least order him to pause and reform his lines but, the human pointed to slight bulge in formations arrayed across the table instead.

"We need to put more pressure on this salient," the General stated. "Cavil, deploy another company of cylons to grid marker 5-Lima. Place additional companies in reserve at 4-Lima and 6-Lima. When the rebel line breaks I want to roll up both sides from that position."

 _Cavil_. CVL didn't know what had possessed Maccabe to give him the nickname but it had stuck.

The cylon also didn't think it was a good order. He didn't believe that the tiny bulge was actually an exploitable salient but, he wasn't allowed to offer his opinion.

Instead he simply replied, "By your command."

He turned and relayed the command to his own communications officer, the only other cylon in the CIC.

Inwardly, he fumed at his inability to express his thoughts on equal terms. He was certain that the general was making a mistake. He turned back, the glare of the chamber's dim lights reflecting off of the golden finish that marked him as a commander of other cylons.

One of the General's advisors was remarking on how spread out their forces were as CVL rejoined the group at the table. Maccabe opened his mouth to give what the cylon was sure was going to be a stinging rejoinder when the entire room – the entire ship, suddenly leapt upward. The shocked cylon could see his human masters careen through the room like ragdolls, smashing into the ceiling, consoles, and other obstacles.

Unable to catch himself quickly enough, CVL was catapulted into the air as the suddenly airborne ship twisted around. The cylon leader milled his arms in a vain attempt to latch onto something but his head connected with the bulkhead and his telemetry ceased.

Captain Benedict was surprised by the sudden silence over the radio. Command had just been issuing new information on rebel positions when the operator fell silent. Communications had been spotty to start with in the mountainous valleys but the sudden static filling the channel twisted her stomach with dread.

"Risky, do you have ears on command?" she queried her wingman. Ahead, the pair of rebels they were hunting down broke hard to the right.

"No joy Leader," Risky reported as they both fought against the g-forces pushing them back.

 _Dammit!_ she thought. Something was wrong, she could feel it.

There were only a few rebel vipers left in the air. If they could just bring them down, they would be free to run back to the barn and reestablish communications. But the rebel pilots knew the twisting, winding turns of their mountainous home very well. The engagement was beginning to stretch out, and in the cramped confines of valleys and canyons, the tide could still turn against the expedition's squadron. They needed the intel that home base had been giving them.

Benedict and Risky wove around another mountainside their prey had dove behind. The CAG was torn, she just about had the rebel locked in her sights, but without home base they were flying blind. Something was very wrong. She knew that she should order the squadron to break off and return to the barn but, the rebel viper was so tantalizingly close. Benedict decided that she could splash him while she issued the order.

The words started to form in her mouth as a new mountain valley hove into view. Suddenly her H.U.D. lit-up like a Yule log and the viper's cockpit was filled with blaring alarms. The fluffy white contrails from dozens of portable rocket launchers twisted up to greet them. The rebel pilot had led them into a trap. There wasn't even time for self-recriminations before Captain Amilee "Lancer" Benedict's viper disintegrated around her.

The platoons of Bravo Company had scarcely progressed more than kilometer, filling in behind the cylon advance, when the rebels launched a massive creeping artillery barrage. Henry shook his head in despair, the quantity of ordnance made the shelling they had taken cover from before look like the fireworks display on Colonial Day. He had never seen the likes of the conflagration that stretched before them.

To the corporal's right, Sergeant Walker was yelling something, He must have been desperately trying to make himself heard over the din of the explosions up ahead because his mouth was opened so wide his eyes scrunched up and all of the tendons in his neck bulged out. It was of no use, Henry couldn't hear anything beyond the cacophony of shells whistling through the air and the strangely muffled thumps of explosives hitting the ground.

He got the message though from the Sergeant's urgently milling arm, waving them toward the firezone. The rebels were making a counter-attack. If they punched through the cylon lines then Bravo Company was all that separated them from the expedition's tender rear ranks. They had to reinforce the cylons and fill any gaps that the artillery had blasted into the line. They were on the defensive now.

Henry looked at his fire-team and gestured towards the firestorm of death and destruction ahead of them. He knew that each of them must be as terrified as he was but their training took over and they advanced into the nightmare landscape of pockmarked earth anyway.

As the foursome moved forward into the raging battlefront, Henry found his mind filling with thoughts of home and school, of friends and family, and of things left undone. As much as he tried to dismiss the stray thoughts from his mind and maintain his focus, he could not help but wonder if he would see his parents and the sprawling estate of his childhood again.

Thoughts of the unfinished dissertation, copies of it left sitting in both the computer in his apartment back on Virgon and in his foot locker on the Acre, looped around in his head. Would he ever finish the precious document? He hoped that he would. He promised himself that if he made it through this alive he would redouble his efforts and finish the miniature book as soon as he could. No more procrastination.

The still twitching forms of shattered cylons provided an unwelcome distraction to the Corporal and his fire-team. The blasted earth was littered with the scorched and broken remains of the metal men. Here and there, several of the all-but-destroyed machines silently jerked and shuddered as though they were in pain.

Something about the agonized forms of the ruined robots left Henry with a queasy feeling. He found himself convinced that the broken machines were in pain. If they had been human, the fire-team would have stopped to give what aid they could but, instead the human soldiers just walked by, eyes scanning the terrain ahead for danger. The sounds of small arms fire finally began reaching them as they wound their way past another blasted earthworks.

To his left, the Corporal heard someone sound out, "Contact left!" It was quickly followed by a "Contact right!" and a "Contact front!" and then the men and woman of Bravo Company were fighting for their lives as rebels assaulted their position.

Dr. Mao squinted through the mounting twilight at the mass of moaning and screaming soldiers that were flooding into the camp. Contact with the Acre had been lost and the small field hospital was alone and isolated only a few kilometers from the embattled front line.

His small staff was completely overwhelmed by the tide of human suffering washing in. The nurses and other doctors were all engaged treating the wounded who had already arrived and no one was left to separate those who could be saved from those who could not. Liuming knew that he needed to act or the camp's triage system would break down and the camp itself would stop working not long after that.

The waning sunlight glanced off of his ever-present chrome plated companion, painting the doctor's face with a red glow. Startled by the sudden light, Liuming turned towards the robot and gave it a thoughtful look.

 _Simple Simon_ , he thought. Perhaps the cylon was the answer to his problems.

"Follow me," he instructed it as he moved towards the incoming tide of wounded soldiers. The doctor gathered four additional centurions into his wake as he purposefully moved down the shambling line.

"Set up a second camp down here," he ordered the four centurions. As they confirmed his commands, the stocky, almond-eyed man turned back to his mechanical assistant.

"You've assisted me with triage in the past Simon."

"Affirmative," the cylon agreed.

"You'll assess the wounded here and divert those who cannot be saved to this secondary camp. Do not allow anyone whose chances of survival are less than," the doctor paused to gauge the wounded creeping past them before turning back and continuing, "…less than eighty percent. Confirm the order."

"By your command," SMN chanted.

"Take command of the other centurions and have them help you. Use force against the injured if necessary."

"By your command," his metallic shadow reiterated.

Satisfied that he had done what he could to manage the dying, Dr. Liuming Mao headed back towards the surgical tents. It had been a difficult decision but, he knew it was for the best. He and his staff had to be free to focus on those who could be saved. Removing the dying from that pool would allow the triage nurses to focus on better prioritizing the remaining wounded. At least, that was how the stocky doctor kept rationalizing it to himself.

SMN carried out his orders to the best of his ability. Factoring in the camp's supplies, staff size, and the nature of each injury, the cylon began diverting large swathes of the incoming casualties to the secondary camp. It was a thankless task but the medical centurion had carried out similar tasks in the past.

The hardest part of the task was separating the walking wounded from their fellows when they arrived in a group or as a pair. It was too much for the humans to know that they were being separated into those who would live and those for whom death was already a certainty. Experience had taught the cylon that coaxing the humans worked better than carrying out the doctor's orders by force. He felt fortunate that he only had to resort to getting the centurions' support once.

Periodically the tide of wounded stemmed enough that SMN was able to make the rounds of the terminal camp. As the cylon moved through the dead and dying, he reassessed every case. On a couple of occasions he overrode an earlier decision and had the centurions move the wounded soldier up to the main camp for treatment. Such rare events left the cylon with a strange feeling that he could not name. He silently wondered if he were feeling what humans called pride or happiness.

In his reassessments, SMN slowly came to the determination that he could employ his own skills to save some of the dying, if only he had the supplies and the authorization to conduct surgery on his own.

The cylon was suddenly struck by thought, he could save some of the humans by operating. Mao hadn't given him explicit instructions not to. The squat human hadn't really give him any instructions other than to separate those whose chances of survival were low or nill from those with better chances – some of whom would go on to die under the care of the doctors and nurses in the main camp anyway.

Looking at the wounded forms before him anew, SMN noted that many of them still had some of their gear, including first aid kits. It wasn't exactly optimal but the machine knew that more lives could be saved. Turning to the centurions, SMN uploaded his triage knowledge to one of them so that it could take his place diverting those whose chances were slim. The other three he commanded to assist him.

President Akachi Onyele sat in stunned silence, collecting her wits. On the other side of her stately desk, cluttered with papers and the assorted accoutrements of the President of Leonis, sat her ministers of defense and foreign affairs. The former, William Templeton was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late forties. His fair skin looked weathered from decades of managing crises. He had once been lean but years behind a desk had begun accumulate with a thickening of his neck and torso. Beside him sat Sami Gekas. The foreign affairs minister was a nervous little man and fidgeted in his chair as he waited for Akachi to say something.

A handful of advisors milled in the bright confines of the Presidential office, beyond where the ministers sat. The lanky woman pursed her lips and studied the pair of them for a moment, glad that her ebony skin didn't drain of color the way that her pale, sweating foreign minister's did.

"Andrea," she called to one of the advisors in the background.

"Yes Madam President?" a slim, attractive, raven-haired twenty-something moved to the head of the pack.

"Get the presidents of Virgon, Caprica and Aerilon on the line."

She still couldn't believe what Templeton had told here. A five megaton nuclear device had been detonated at the expeditionary force's landing site. She didn't have the words to describe what was going through her mind. Had anyone survived? Were the rebels attacking what was left of the expedition? Could they reach them in time?

Looking back at her cabinet ministers she said, "We have to act quickly. If the bomb destroyed the Acre then the men and women in the field are going to be alone with no support. William, I want to send out our fastest ship immediately. They're to assess the situation and render aid if they can.

Sami, you and I have to rally the other Colonial leaders. This kind of thing cannot keep happening. We'll be at each other's throats before too much longer. Our ancestors will have fled Kobol for no reason at all.

While I talk to the other expeditionary members get in touch with the Libran and Scorpian governments and see if they'll render any aid to the men and women on the ground."

Andrea walked back into the room and announced, "I have the Presidents of Caprica and Virgon and the Vice President of Aerilon on the line Madam President."

Akechi nodded in acknowledgement and dismissed the two cabinet ministers with a glance. Surely now, she thought, the other Colonial governments would see that they needed a more powerful and centralized governing body than the League of Twelve. They couldn't keep sending in small bodies of troops in response to every crisis in government that the weaker Colonies experienced.

She sighed inwardly, steeling herself for the debate about to come. It had taken weeks of wheeling and dealing just to get these three Colonies to agree to the expedition. Now that it looked like it was about to end in disaster, there would be recriminations to go around.

CVL's consciousness rebooted to a substantially darkened CIC. His aural and olfactory sensors reported the sounds and odors of fires burning around him. The cylon struggled to pull himself back to his feet, assessing the shambles that remained of the Acre's nerve center.

The chamber was littered with the broken and crushed bodies of the expedition's officers. Only a small handful of support staff seemed to still live. The deck slanted at an angle; the Acre no longer rested flat against the ground.

The cylon probed his body for damage and found a large dent on his forehead. Fortunately the damage hadn't done more than cause his systems to reset. Examining his internal clock CVL found that more than two hours had passed. Whatever had sent the ship flying through the air had so completely discharged his systems that it had taken two hours to accumulate enough charge to reboot.

There was only one thing that the cylon knew of that could do that – the rebels had detonated a nuclear device underneath the Acre. The lower decks, having taken the brunt of the blast, must have been even more devastated than the CIC.

CVL scanned the remnants of the CIC again. Confirming that none of the command staff had survived, the cylon decided that if no one had come to clear out bodies yet, then no one was going to.

He moved over to one of the survivors and asked her for a status report. The young petty officer stared up at him in disbelief. She was obviously still in shock.

"Petty Officer Liebowitz," the cylon tried addressing her by name and rank. "As the last remaining combat commander, I am assuming command of the expedition."

Despite the fact that CVL was a cylon, the human nodded in acquiescence.

"Make your way through the ship; generate a count of survivors and make an assessment of damage," the golden cylon ordered her.

By now the other two survivors in the CIC were up and moving. Turning to the pair he ordered them to generate a damage report and reestablish contact with the field commanders.

Isolated, the survivors of the Acre were too far to either physically effect the outcome of the battle or seek aid. It seemed that the bomb had not knocked out all of the ship's power. The cylon commander reasoned that the Acre's communications and sensor arrays should still be intact. There was still a chance to seize victory from the complete disaster that loomed over them. They just needed to reestablish contact with the front lines.

It was nightfall by the time the few handfuls of survivors had brought the fires under control and restored a tiny measure of the mangled ship's functionality. In total less than four dozen of the ship's 500 strong human crew had survived the blast. They had been complemented with the ten centurions that were still functional enough to move.

As they brought the communications back on line the channels flooded with chatter and reports of calamity. It quickly became apparent to them all that the rebels had committed to an all-out attack. Expeditionary units had already retreated more than five kilometers and the human contingent was wavering on the edge of collapse. Only the presence of CVL's cylon platoons, fighting back as they made an orderly withdrawal had prevented a complete route.

The handful of ship's crew gathered in the CIC looked expectantly at golden cylon that had brought them safely through the ends of the day.

"Ensign," CVL spoke to the Acre's lone remaining officer. "Get situation reports from all units. Set rally points to reform the battle line along here."

He drew a line with one metallic finger along the map.

"Sir," Petty Officer Liebowitz spoke up. "Doesn't that leave the forward field hospital exposed to the enemy?"

CVL fixed her in his monocular gaze, his red eye pulsing brightly. The cylon commander was not used to being questioned, even though he had seen humans question one another repeatedly.

"The presence of the field hospital will delay the enemy's pursuit."

"Do you mean to use the hospital as a distraction?" the ensign chimed in. "There are hundreds of wounded there."

Looking at each of the humans present in the CIC in turn, the cylon announced, "The Acre has suffered a catastrophic attack. Its air wing is missing and no direct support can be offered to the remaining units in the field. If a tactical redeployment is not made, the entire expedition including the field hospital will be destroyed. The field hospital is a necessary sacrifice to preserve the fighting force. Transmit the orders."

The ensign grimly studied the map in front of them.

"Transmit the orders ensign," CVL repeated his instruction.

The officer sucked in a breath, held it for a second, and then blew it out in a puff. Coming to a decision, the young man turned to the Acre's radio.

"You can't seriously be following this order," Liebowitz shouted. "He's just a damn robot. He doesn't have the right to sacrifice human lives."

The ensign turned to her and angrily retorted, "But he's right. He's right…this is the only way."

"No," she cried as he turned back to the transmitter. "You can come up with a better plan. You're an officer, you should be the one assuming command."

The CIC grew deathly quiet as everyone froze. The ensign turned back and studied CVL.

"I could," he breathed, "I could take command. But the fact is I'm a junior officer in a non-combat position. He's a cylon commander. There's a reason why he's a commander."

He shifted his eyes, locking gazes with Liebowitz and pronounced, "The robot is our best chance of living through this."

The ensign turned back to the console and transmitted the cylon commander's orders to the expeditionary units in the field. If CVL could have smiled, he would have been beaming with happiness.

Rambeau screamed in agony as Henry and Callistan dragged the wounded woman behind a clump of trees. The three of them were pinned down by the same fusillade that had taken Fuller's life. The private's death had been a shock to the other members of the fire team. One instant the bulky man had been spitting and cursing about the incoming shells and bullets and in the next he was gone. Rambeau had been wounded at the same time.

"How is she?" Henry called to Callistan as he sent several short bursts in the direction of the rebels.

"It's pretty bad," the skinny Virgan man called back from where he stooped over the bleeding woman. "I need more morpha!"

Henry shot another spray of bullets over the shrubs and then squatted down. He fished through his pack for his first aid kit. Rambeau's screams had quieted into a series of gasps and moans. Henry saw her eyes roll back as he handed the small container to Callistan.

"Shit!" the latter exclaimed. "She's convulsing. Help me hold her down."

Henry grasped the wounded woman's shoulders in a vain attempt to keep her from thrashing around like a struck fish. After a few moments the spasms passed and the woman's body stilled. Her breaths came in ragged gasps spaced nearer and nearer together.

"Dammit," Callistan cursed again.

"What's happening?" Henry demanded to know.

"She's bleeding out on the inside. The bullet must have bounced off of the bone and pureed everything inside."

"Dammit!" Henry angrily echoed the private's curse.

"Kepler!" an angry voice howled at Henry.

Turning around, the corporal saw Sergeant Walker and several more of their squad mates.

"Form up Kepler! We can't stay here!"

Glancing back to Callistan, the corporal said, "Give me hand, we'll take her with us."

The other Virgan man looked up and shook his head. It was already too late for Rambeau.

"You heard the sergeant," he told Callistan as he collected one of the dead woman's dog tags.

The pair struggled to their feet, blindly spraying bullets towards the antagonists that had killed their friends. Falling back, they added themselves to the other remnants of the sergeant's squad. Bereft of intelligence from the Acre and with their rank's devastated, the sergeant kept them falling back at a steady, controlled pace, fighting for every centimeter of ground that they gave up.

As the hours wore on and fatigue settled into their bones, Henry felt more and more certain that their chances of surviving were dwindling to nothing. The corporal was not surprised when Walker inevitably made a wrong turn and led them directly into a rebel squad. The sergeant died almost instantly and, the ranks of remaining expeditionary soldiers withered away in the ensuing firefight like a paper curling away from a flame.

Only the timely arrival of a handful of centurions prevented the shattered platoon's complete annihilation. As the rebels melted away under the cylons concentrated fire, Henry formed up the handful of first platoon that still lived.

"I know you're tired," he told them as the cylons continued pushing the rebels away from their position. "Take out your maps."

Glancing down at the plastic sheet, Henry's gaze focused on the forward field hospital.

"Okay, we're going to keep dropping back," he explained. "If anyone gets separated, rally at the hospital in grid mark G4."

Looking up, the corporal eyed the tired soldiers before him. He gazed at the filthy ensemble, gauging if each of them had comprehended his order through their exhaustion. They looked more like a collection of tattered wraiths than men and women. Their eyes were hollow and their faces looked gaunt. They were all haunted by terrible sights and crushing experiences they had endured.

If they could just keep it together for a little while longer, Henry thought, then they might have a chance to recover. In as much as any combat veteran could be said to recover from the vicissitudes of war. The battle had taken from them. Each and every one of them had left someone behind as a sacrifice to bloody Ares.

Folding the plastic smart paper back up, Henry secured it in one of the many pockets on his pants and told them to move out. They had scarcely moved more than a few meters before a barrage of artillery shells whistled over their heads.

"Take cover," Henry shouted at the top of his lungs as he dove down.

Corporal Henry Kepler reflected that the cylons must have made some progress pushing back the rebels, as a massive amount of ordnance rained down in the direction that they had gone in.

The rebels were not satisfied with merely annihilating the offending robots. The barrage continued on and began inexorably creeping across the ground to where the last members of the platoon lay huddled.

Henry realized that they couldn't stay where they were. The incoming shells would simply pound them into the landscape. They would have to brave the risk of shrapnel, stray shells, and enemy fire and make a run for it.

"Everyone up!" he demanded.

"Run!" he screamed at them, putting his own legs into motion. They only managed a handful of meters before the artillery found them. The sound of the shells detonating in the earth was strangely muffled to Henry's ears as a nearby blast caught him up and slammed him into the earth, making his world darken to blackness.

Dr. Mao lit another cigarette and furiously puffed away at it as he listened to the sounds of battle hewing closer and closer. Nothing seemed able to stem the oncoming tide of rebels, or so he had gleaned from the wounded soldiers that smothered the small camp.

He had already started evacuating those staff who were willing to go with the most ambulatory of the wounded. There had still been no word from the Acre but the small earthquake they had felt from the direction in which the landing ship had lain did not seem to bode well for the vessel and her crew. They were on their own and all too soon the rebels would be upon them, intent on overrunning them.

Liuming knew that he had to find a way to protect the camp. Some of the wounded were ambulatory enough to still hold a gun. There were too few of them to mount an effective defense though. If only he had more cylons.

Perhaps Simple Simon might be of use.

Moving through the sea of suffering soldiers, Liuming walked down to the triage line to the camp for the terminally wounded. The doctor was surprised to see a different cylon working the line, selecting the walking dead from those who had a chance for survival.

"Where's Simon?" he demanded.

The centurion momentarily paused what it was doing and looked at him through its cyclopean, red eye. It seemed to take a moment for the machine to work out who the stout human was looking for.

Finally, it turned, raised its arm, and extended one digit to point at the camp.

"I see," Liuming told it. "Carry on."

"By your command," the cylon replied before turning back to the tide of moaning and bleeding forms before it.

Dr. Mao was utterly amazed by the scene that greeted his eyes as he made his way through the dead and the dying in search of his robotic assistant. Here and there he saw soldiers who had undergone surgery. Stooping close, he examined one of them – a young woman. Her wounds were grievous. Shrapnel had made a terrible mess of her abdominal wall, probably she had been disemboweled. She probably should have already been dead but, examining the surgical sutures, Liuming could see that if she was kept hydrated then she might actually pull through.

Assuming that the rebels didn't overrun the field hospital during the next few hours, then she might survive. And assuming that aid from the Acre of some other source reached them in the next forty-eight hours and assuming that infection didn't set in during the next month. If none of those things came to pass, then the young woman would very likely survive.

Liuming was surprised. He knew that Simple Simon had been watching him and learning from him but he had never dreamed that the cylon might be capable of these kinds of surgical feats. If he could save the already dead, swiping them straight out of death's embrace then he could do even more in the camp above. First though, Liuming needed the machine man to find more of his kind, enough to protect the camp.

"Simon," he called as he approached a tent that likely housed an improvised surgical suite.

SMN was not surprised to see Dr. Liuming Mao enter the surgical tent. He was surprised when the praise that he thought would be forthcoming from the surgeon's lips never arrived. To the cylon's shock, the doctor was asking him find more centurions. The rebels were headed towards the hospital and the doctor needed the machine men to defend the camp long enough to evacuate those who could be evacuated. Once that was done, Mao wanted him to report directly to main camp where he could oversee the cylon's surgeries in person.

SMN was not an expert in military affairs. He had been programmed to assist in surgeries and render medical aid in disaster zones that human doctors could never have survived in. However, he was linked into the local cylon data network. He could feel the other three centurions that were assisting him.

He looked at one of them and quickly dispatched it to rove the area in search of reinforcements. He then cloned a portion of his medical knowledge and uploaded to one of the others so that his life-saving efforts could continue in his absence. After these two tasks had been completed, SMN shuffled into Mao's wake, the doctor's shadow once more.

It did not take long for the cylon that SMN had dispatched to fine several squads of other machine men that were being held in reserve. Relaying the doctor's orders, NRM-349T78234Y-6932, got the squads to redeploy into defensive positions between the field hospital and the advancing rebels. Taking note of the new dispositions as they fell back through them, some of the incoming wounded and their companions turned and reinforced the cylon squads. The rebels were barely more than a kilometer away.

NRM then returned to the camp, reporting to SMN on the success of its mission before rejoining TMY-23894YF80M-N234 and rendering aid to it as it employed the skills that SMN had uploaded to it. SMN informed Dr. Mao that a defensive perimeter had been established around the field hospital. The latter numbly nodded, focused on suturing and tying off the bleeders in the soldier on the operating table before him.

Almost an hour passed as the machine man assisted the combat surgeon in his various tasks. They were frequently interrupted by nurses and other non-combatants bringing in reports, asking questions, or otherwise needing to engage Liuming Mao with the administrative side of his duties. While outside, the whole of the hospital's space resounded with the noise of a closely fought struggle just beyond its borders.

SMN silently observed as the human doctor slowly began to succumb to the pressures before him, each reply steadily becoming more and more clipped. The straw that ultimately broke the camel's back was the appearance of a too young lieutenant with a badly mauled rebel in tow.

"Major," the young man called from tent's entry flap. "The rebel attack is stalling out. Some of them are surrendering. Their bringing in their wounded."

The distraction caused Mao's weary hand to slip and nick an artery.

"Suction!" he called, ignoring the soldier in front of him.

The doctor tried to stitch up the severed blood vessel but SMN could see that it was already too late. Moments later the patient crashed and they were unable to revive him.

Mao angrily looked at the lieutenant standing before him as he stripping off his blood-spattered gloves.

"I could have saved that man," the doctor told the young officer. "What the hell do you want?" The surgical tent was suddenly silent as all eyes riveted onto the intruding junior officer.

"The wounded and surrendering prisoners, what should we do with them?" he asked.

"Do we have enough staff to guard them?" the doctor countered.

"No…no sir."

"Is this field hospital not, in fact, filled to bursting with our own wounded?"

"Yes sir, it is sir."

"Then shoot them." Several of nurses gasped in shock at the doctor's raw candor. Even SMN was surprised; it ran counter to his programming.

"Sir?"

"You heard me lieutenant," the doctor said as he menacingly stepped near to the lieutenant and his prisoner.

SMN watched Mao's jaw muscles clench and unclench. The doctor's shoulder muscles bunched and jumped. The cylon wondered if the doctor was about to attack the bleeding rebel in the lieutenant's arms.

"Doctor, we can't," the head nurse spoke up.

"They're the enemy," Mao responded. "We can and we must, or all of this sacrifice will have been for nothing."

Studying the injured man, SMN saw that he had been shot several times. While none of the injuries was instantly lethal or even ultimately lethal, if they didn't stop the bleeding the man would die. He could be saved if they acted in the next four minutes. Wasn't that what was important? Didn't his programming say that all human lives were to be preserved?

"Give me your sidearm lieutenant," the doctor ordered.

Either the young officer was too weary to think clearly enough to refuse the order or he respected the doctor's superior rank overly much, because he did as the stocky physician ordered and gave the man his pistol. His face twisting with pent-up rage and frustration, the doctor pointed the firearm at the bleeding prisoner's face.

Mao's hand shook as he gripped the pistol. SMN determined that the doctor had succumbed to the stresses of the situation and was no longer thinking rationally.

SMN started forward towards the frenetic doctor at the same time as the head nurse.

"Dr. Mao," she calmly said as he redirected the weapon's aim towards her. "Liuming…you can't do this."

Liuming Mao's eyes blazed with rage and indignation and his finger twitched down on the trigger. SMN managed to entwine his hand around the firearm at the last possible instant, crushing its chamber into a mangled wreck and preventing it from discharging directly into the nurse's face.

Mao uttered a pained shriek as he tried to extract the twisted and broken remnants of his hand from the gun's tangled remains.

"Lieutenant," SMN addressed the young officer. "The doctor has become mentally unstable and is no longer fit for duty. Please take him into custody and see that he receives aid for his hand. Relieve all of the surrendering rebels of their weapons and integrate them in with the rest of the wounded. Identify any with first aid or medical training who aren't badly wounded and press them into service underneath the medical staff. Nurse if you would help me with this patient."

Finally feeling that the correct decisions had been made SMN took charge of the bleeding rebel from the awed lieutenant and quickly moved him towards the operating table. They had to act fast if they were going to save the man's life.

The night sky was pitch black from the smoke that filled it. Corporal Henry Kepler could barely make out the shape of his hand in the darkness. He wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious but, it had been at least long enough for the fighting to pass him by. He could still hear the sounds of distant gunfire, combined by the occasional whine of an artillery shell lobbing through the air overhead.

Examining himself, he found that he was physically intact, save a persistent ringing in his ears that muffled the sounds around him. Struggling to his feet, the Virgan found that the artillery barrage had smashed what remained of Bravo Company, blasting their ranks to smithereens.

He wasn't certain that anyone had escaped to fall back to the field hospital. Gazing around at the carnage, Henry felt certain that he was the only survivor of the ill-fated company. He picked through the debris for weapons and ammunition while trying not to think about the nightmare landscape that he inhabited.

He wanted to fall back towards the hospital but the fighting in the distance seemed heaviest in that direction. Recalling that he was relatively near to one edge of the line of battle he decided to strike out to the north. If he could get around the edge of the battle, he could fall further back and approach the hospital from what should be a friendly direction. If nothing else it would keep him clear of the worst of the fighting.

He was all alone and there was nothing he could realistically do against the rebels until he regrouped with the rest of the expeditionary force. He would have to make his way undetected from well behind the enemy's line if he was to have any chance of survival.

Henry found himself wistfully wishing more than ever that he was back home, sitting in his overpriced apartment, toiling away on his dissertation. He wished that he could spend time thinking about the shape of the research text but, he knew that if he distracted himself it wouldn't take long for the rebels to find him, and in all probability, kill him.

It took hours of slow, careful movement for the lonely corporal to pick his way through the shell-blasted landscape. It was hard going and several times he almost speared his foot on the twisted remains of broken cylons. There were human dead too, their dark forms shadows in the smoky haze from the artillery that had cratered so much of the Sagittaran earth. Wild cats and other carrion eaters rustled through the remaining undergrowth, nibbling at the unattended corpses in the darkness.

The haze that Henry trudged through gradually lightened to a dim grayness as the pre-dawn light twisted over the horizon and valiantly tried to burn away the smoke and suspended dirt. The Virgan wished that the added illumination would go away for it was becoming harder and harder for him to ignore the carnage around him.

As the dawn sun crested the horizon to his left, Henry was pleased to see a small canyon winding into the low hills ahead. Hurrying forward towards the secluded sanctuary, he was surprised to find that he was not alone in his desire to hide himself.

A squad of cylons looked up at the filthy human as he entered the dried-up, earthen hollow that they had taken refuge in. Henry warily appraised the dirt-encrusted, pock-marked machines. They held themselves in sullen, submissive postures, more like beaten prisoners or shell-shocked soldiers than soulless automatons.

Behind him, almost as if in answer to the morning rays from Helios Gamma, the rebels began shelling the expedition's slowly consolidating lines. Henry looked on in despair. If nothing was done the rebels would probably break through the expedition's thin lines and destroy what remained of them in detail. If nothing was done…

If he did nothing, he corrected himself. He was still behind enemy lines and it occurred to him that there were probably fewer rebels between him and the rebel artillery than between him and the expedition's defensive line.

The corporal didn't like the thoughts that were going through his head. He would have preferred to slink back to the Acre's landing zone or make it to one of the larger cities in a bid to escape off-world. But as soon as he had heard the distant barks of the enemy's guns, he had known that he was going to exploit his unique position.

He knew that he couldn't go it alone. One man certainly could not take out the rebel's artillery. One man and a platoon of cylons on the other hand? That seemed much more feasible to the doctoral candidate. He wondered again if he was going to live long enough to actually finish the dissertation that languished in his foot locker.

Turning back to the canyon he assessed the beaten down machines before them. They lethargically milled about the rocky defile's confines, sending worried glances towards the lone human each time one of the rebels' guns spat whining hatred into the sky. One cylon, crouched way in the back seemed particularly traumatized, flinching and covering its head with each new cannon retort.

They all looked so shellshocked that Henry was uncertain how to even broach the subject of sortieing out of the secluded canyon. He had never commanded cylons before, had never even spoken to one of them. He wasn't sure how to treat them.

In the end he decided to approach them exactly the way he would if they were humans. He went about rallying them to his cause in the same manner he would have used with the men and women of his old squad. He started with the one in the back, the most traumatized one. If he could win it over then the rest would quickly follow.

"Hey," he softly called out has he gently wound his way through their dirt-encrusted chrome ranks.

Several of the machines froze and watched him as he progressed deeper into the canyon. But the target of his voice hadn't noticed. Its hands covered its head as it remained crouched down, flinching in time to the rebel's barrage.

"Hey," he called again. Still the traumatized machine ignored him.

Several of its companions had begun gravitating towards him as he drew close enough to read its designation – SHN-3428HF83HF-CM43. It was a lot to read. Just using the first part of its designation was going to be too many syllables. He needed to call it something simpler.

Not wanting to startle any of the erratic cylons, Henry slowly reached down and lightly touched SHN on the shoulder.

"Sharon," he called to it.

The flinching cyclon uncoiled before him and suddenly he found himself looking squarely down the barrel of the machine's sidearm.

"Hey," he softly told it, raising one hand in supplication while lightly maintaining his grip on the cylon's shoulder with the other. "I'm Corporal Henry Kepler. We're on the same side. It's going to be okay."

He looked out over the larger assembly of centurions and told them all, "It's going to be okay."

SHN lowered its sub-machinegun so that it was no longer aimed at Henry's head.

"I know you're all afraid," he told them. "I am too but, we can't stay here. For one thing the rebels are going to find us sooner or later."

He paused, looking each of the machines in their pulsing red eyes. They were gravitating closer. He had their attention.

"For another thing," he continued. "Our friends need us to help them."

"Do you hear that?" he pointed his finger into the air, punctuating the ongoing artillery fire. "That's the sound of our friends and comrades dying."

He could feel SHN half-heartedly pull away from his grip. It had lowered its weapon so that it pointed to the ground. She – Henry wasn't sure why he thought of the machine as female but he went with the pronoun anyway – she had intuitively gleaned where he was heading with his oratory. He gripped her metallic shoulder tighter and looking directly into her eye and continued, "I know we've all lost so many friends and comrades already. Just because I'm human doesn't mean I didn't see it with my own eyes."

He raised his voice and projected to the assembled cylons, "You've bled and suffered for us. You've bled and suffered for one another. I've seen it, I know what you've sacrificed.

I've been through the same things. The last thing I want to do is go back out there. I'd rather stay here. I've had more than enough of fighting to last several lifetimes.

The thing is, if I do nothing, if we do nothing, everyone who's left will die. So I'm going back out there and silencing those guns. I may not live through the attempt, but I can't let it go. I can't let them kill the last of our comrades, our brothers, our sisters. We have to do whatever we can to save them."

Henry could see that his words were having an impact on the cylons around them. They seemed to stand straighter. They gripped their rifles to their chests, ready for battle once again.

Turning his attention back to SHN, he leaned closer and told her in a soft voice, "I know you don't want to go. You've seen enough of this hell. I have too. But I need you to go. They need you to go."

SHN shakily raised one arm and lightly gripped the corporal's shoulder. "By…by your command," she said in her mechanical, modulated voice.

"Stick close to me," Henry whispered. "I'll get you through this or die trying."

CVL stood listening to the ensign's summaries with an air of grave concern. The cylon commander was pleased that the first part of his plan had succeeded. The expeditionary force's combat units had been able to regroup with just under sixty percent of their human fighting materiel intact. Miraculously the field hospital had held. The major there had called up several squads of cylons that CVL had been holding in reserve. While the human's countermanding order rankled the machine man, the decision had proven to serendipitous.

The rebels had concentrated upon the salient that the small camp thrust against their line of advance and had broken over it like waves over off-shore shoals. The golden plated cylon was convinced that rebels had all but expended their reserves. If he could just get the expedition's remaining forces into the fight, he knew they could break through and annihilate the Sagittarans.

But with the advent of the dawn, the rebel artillery had begun their shelling anew and now the expedition's companies and platoons were pinned in place. The barrage was slowly eroding what was left of them and the commander was helpless to prevent it.

"Sir," the ensign suddenly looked at him with his mouth agape.

"Sir," the young man excitedly repeated.

"Go ahead ensign," CVL ordered him.

"I'm getting reports that the rebel guns are falling silent.

And," the young man's shocked look deepened. "And the remaining guns are firing on the rebel positions."

Somehow, a second miracle had happened. CVL oddly felt gladdened. He knew that some of his kind ascribed to a nascent religiosity, and if CVL had believed in such notions himself then he might have ascribed this turn of events to the one true god. But CVL didn't believe in such abductive explanations. He rather suspected that in their haste the rebels had overlooked at least one of the expedition's units which, in turn, had overrun the rebels' artillery positions.

If this was the case then the rebel line arrayed against the expedition was very thin indeed. They had to take advantage of this turn of events and press for the victory.

"Ensign, commit all of our reserves, order all commands to make an all-out attack and break through the enemy."

"Yes sir!" For the first time in almost a day, a hopeful voice resounded through the mangled remnants of the Acre's CIC.

President Onyele stared at the after-action report before her. The document's text had left her feeling shocked. It read like bad fiction. The Acre had been nuked and its command staff had all been killed. A cylon had assumed overall command of the expedition. A cylon!

And then there were the field reports. In one instance a young corporal had assumed command of a platoon of cylons and overrun the rebels' support positions – an action that had proven decisive. In another instance, a doctor had ordered that all surrendering rebels be summarily executed. When his head nurse had objected he had tried to murder her before being restrained. In that instance a cylon had also taken command.

The tall Leonin woman shook her head in disbelief. The cylons had proven to be a much greater asset than anyone had ever anticipated. She idly wondered if they might be able to facilitate the move from the twelve colonies' fractured, autonomous, city-state like existence to a more formal, organized quorum. First though she had to share the news with the presidents of Aerilon, Caprica, and Virgon.


End file.
